Ethics panel weighs in on speaker race

Sunday

Nov 21, 2010 at 12:01 AM

AUSTIN - The House General Investigating & Ethics Committee is one of those panels that rarely meets.

But come Tuesday the five-member group Rep. Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville, chairs is likely to be the center of attention at the State Capitol. The committee will investigate an allegation that someone in Speaker Joe Straus' inner circle told Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, he wouldn't have to worry about his East Texas district phased out when the Legislature takes on redistricting next year - as long as he backed the San Antonio Republican for a second term as speaker.

Hughes made this allegation when announcing that he was withdrawing his pledge for Straus. And though he has not publicly identified the House member who allegedly tried to muzzle him, Hughes gave the name to Straus and now it is up to Hopson's panel to decide what to do next.

So, what else is new? As every Austin insider knows, speaker races are not dinner parties. They are hardball politics in which arm-twisting is the common weapon because there is so much at stake for the candidates and their key supporters.

A good example is the 1992 fight between West Texas Democrats Pete Laney of Hale Center and Jim Rudd of Brownfield. Laney won and went on to become speaker for 10 years while Rudd was sent to the chamber's equivalent of the doghouse.

Rudd told the San Antonio Express-News four years ago that he retired after losing because he knew his long legislative career was over. He had been chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee but Laney sent him to a committee so obscure he couldn't even remember its name.

A more recent example happened four years ago when then-Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, punished his two Republican challengers, Jim Pitts of Waxahachie and Brian McCall of Plano, especially Pitts. Craddick took the chairmanship of Appropriations from him.

For the backers of the winners and losers of speaker races the stakes are almost as high.

The conventional wisdom in Austin is that in the 2007 session Craddick appointed Warren Chisum chairman of Appropriations because the Pampa Republican led the fight to end the anti-Craddick rebellion.

Nonetheless, as Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, a veteran of three speaker races - including the one early last year when he was briefly a candidate - said, arm-twisting can only go so far.

"This allegation has raised some eyebrows because if it's true it comes close to being blackmail," Smithee said. "The committee will have to decide whether whoever made this alleged threat crossed the line."

Straus made this even clearer.

"These allegations are outrageous and I have a call into Rep. Hughes to insist that he name the individual with whom he had this alleged conversation," Straus said shortly after learning of Hughes' allegation. "I did not and would never authorize, allow, or condone linking redistricting in any way with the Speaker's race, and anyone who knows me knows better than to give that assertion any credence."

Besides the identity of the lawmaker who allegedly tried to muzzle Hughes, what remains unclear is what will happen to him if Hopson's panel determines that, indeed, he crossed the line.

This year's speaker race has gotten uglier than previous contests and it has also gone beyond the Capitol. The most recent example is some e-mails and websites from conservative activists suggesting that Chisum and Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, who are challenging Straus, are better candidates because they are "Christians." Straus is Jewish.

"Straus is going down in Jesus' name," said one of several e-mails the political newsletter Quorum Report got a hold of. Both Chisum and Paxton have strongly condemned such attacks.

"I absolutely reject such deplorable personal attacks based on anyone's religion," Chisum wrote to Straus.

Nonetheless, although a recent Texas Tribune survey of more than 150 Austin insiders showed that Straus is expected to win a second term, the perception is that arm-twisting and negative campaign have gone farther than usual in the current speaker race.

Tuesday's hearing may just confirm it.

Enrique Rangel is Austin Bureau chief for the Globe-News. His e-mail address is enrique.rangel@morris.com.

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